Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 1st, 2014

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. How did I...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Remember all that was just said about PV-43. It was very similar to the last one, and also it's identical to Liberal-28.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. You're quite right.

PV-42 is identical, and that's all I need to say. It extends the retention period from one year to five years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Do I see a hand on this one? No? Okay.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

That is defeated, and therefore Liberal-28 is the same.

Mr. Simms, your new one is Liberal-28.1. We'll call it “Simms II”. Carry on.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It sounds like a boat in the America's yacht race.

I will explain this, so I want everyone to open the bill itself and turn to page 40. Go down to proposed subsection 348.06(2) under “Time for filing and contents”.

I'll read proposed subsection 348.06(2):

For each election period to which the agreement applies, the registration notice shall be filed not later than 48 hours after the first call is made under the agreement and shall set out

That's what I'm looking at here because we may have a problem if there's a filing of 48 hours after the first call is made, if it's the day before election day itself. I'm citing a possibility of abuse here, because the rationale is simply that in the 48-hour period, if you make these calls with a robocall—mostly robocalls—if the call is made and then you have 48 hours, that could go past election day itself. Remember, I'm not talking about the writ period. I'm just talking about election day. This is the day prior to election day if the calls are made.

So if there is skullduggery at play—as I'll describe it—many people could call the CRTC to report the calls, but the CRTC will have no idea what the script of the call is, who is making them, and who is receiving them.

So there is a potential for abuse here and I hope that we can close that by amending this to say that prior to the call, you register. I don't have a specific time in there. I'm open to suggestion, but I'm more concerned about the fact that there is that 48-hour period after you make a call to report it. If those calls are made the day before election day, then that could cause problems for election day only to be answered after.

I'm open to questions. Maybe we should let this stand for a while. I understand this is new to everybody. I don't want to be rushing it.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Could we let it stand? We'll probably get back before five o'clock, so we can still have the debate.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We're okay with that?

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Do we have copies of that, though? Did you just verbally give us what you'd like to do or have you got hard copies?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I so move, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We have it written someplace, but we only have one.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

As long as we can get a copy of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

It's only in English.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

We've been doing things on the fly.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Well, prior to five o'clock....

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

The language itself is basically that page 40, lines 36 and 37 be replaced with and the quotation I'm using here is, “be filed prior to the first call being made under the agreement and shall set out”. So I'm saying prior to the first call being made as opposed to the 48 hours, no later than 48 hours.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

We need to get a hard copy and I'll get a quick analysis done and get back to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Right. So we'll move on from there, but let's arrange that to happen.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I appreciate your patience. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

If the chair slips or sleeps, either one, catch me just before 5:00 to make sure we do bring that one up.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

If that's the case then, we'll stand the rest of this clause because that makes an amendment to it somewhere in the middle of it.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

The voter contact calling services, the whole clause?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Yes.

You're not agreeing to this?